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Lewis Howard Latimer (September 4, 1848 – December 11, 1928) was an American inventor and patent draftsman. His inventions included an evaporative air conditioner, an improved process for manufacturing carbon filaments for electric light bulbs, and an improved toilet system for railroad cars. In 1884, he joined the Edison Electric Light Company where he worked as a draftsman. The Lewis H. Latimer House, his landmarked former residence, is located near the Latimer Projects at 34–41 137th Street in Flushing, Queens, New York City.
Lewis Howard Latimer was born in Chelsea, Massachusetts. Lewis was the youngest of the four children of Rebecca Latimer and George Latimer.[1] Before Lewis was born, his mother and father escaped from slavery in Virginia and fled to Chelsea on October 4, 1842. The day they arrived in Boston, George was recognized by a colleague of his former slave owner and was arrested a few days later, on October 20, 1842. George's trial received great notoriety; he was represented by Frederick Douglass and William Lloyd Garrison. He was eventually able to purchase his freedom and live with his family in Chelsea.[2]
When Latimer was young he spent time helping his father in his barbershop.[3] Lewis Latimer also spent time at night hanging wallpaper with his father.[4]
When Latimer was 10, his mother decided to split the family after the Dred Scott case ruled individual slaves needed to prove they had the consent of their owner to legally become free; prior to this ruling, many slaves had attained freedom by escaping into free states and becoming state citizens, which gave them some protection from the efforts of interstate slave catchers.[clarification needed] Lewis's father, George Latimer, had no proof of his emancipation and likely fled to protect his family.[5]
After his father had to flee and his mother had to split the family, Lewis and his brothers were sent to a farm school, and his sisters were sent to stay with a family friend.[5]
Lewis Howard Latimer joined the U.S. Navy at the age of 16 on September 16, 1864, and served as a Landsman on the USS Massasoit. After receiving an honorable discharge from the U.S. Navy on July 3, 1865, he gained employment as an office boy with a patent law firm, Crosby Halstead and Gould, with a $3.00 per week salary. He learned how to use a set square, ruler, and other drafting tools. Later, after his boss recognized his talent for sketching patent drawings, Latimer was promoted to the position of head draftsman earning $20 a week by 1872 (equivalent to $525 in 2024).[1]
Lewis H. Latimer married Mary Wilson Lewis on November 15, 1873, in Fall River, Massachusetts. Mary was born in Providence, Rhode Island, the daughter of Louisa M. and William Lewis.[6] The couple had two daughters, Emma Jeanette (1883–1978) and Louise Rebecca (1890–1963). Jeanette married Gerald Fitzherbert Norman, the first black person hired as a high school teacher in the New York City public school system,[7] and had two children: Winifred Latimer Norman (1914–2014), a social worker who served as the guardian of her grandfather's legacy, and Gerald Latimer Norman (1911–1990), who became an administrative law judge.
In 1879, Latimer and his wife, Mary, moved to Bridgeport, Connecticut, along with his mother, Rebecca, and his brother, William. They settled in a neighborhood called "Little Liberia," which had been established in the early 19th century by free blacks. (The landmark Mary and Eliza Freeman Houses are the last surviving buildings on their original foundations of this community.) Other family members already living there were his brother, George A. Latimer, his wife, Jane, his sister, Margaret, and her husband, Augustus T. Hawley, and their children. Mary died in Bridgeport in 1924.
In 1874, Latimer co-patented (with Charles M. Brown) an improved toilet system for railroad cars called the Water Closet for Railroad Cars (U.S. Patent 147,363).[8]
In 1876, Alexander Graham Bell employed Latimer, then a draftsman at Bell's patent law firm, to draft the necessary drawings required to receive a patent for Bell's telephone.[9]
In 1879, he moved to Bridgeport, Connecticut, and was hired as assistant manager and draftsman for the US Electric Lighting Co., a company owned by Hiram Maxim, a rival of Thomas Edison.[5] While Latimer was there he invented a modification to the process for making carbon filaments which aimed to reduce breakages during the carbonization process.[10] This modification consisted of placing filament blanks inside a cardboard envelope during carbonization.[11] While in England on behalf of the Maxim light company, he taught the entire process for making Maxim lights, including glassblowing, in 9 months to get the factory up and running.[4]
In 1884, he was invited to work with Thomas Edison. Along with the work he did with Edison, he was also responsible for translating data into German and French, as well as gathering that information.[5]
Latimer also developed a forerunner of the air conditioner called "Apparatus for cooling and disinfecting".[12]
In 1894, Latimer pursued a patent on a safety elevator that prevented the riders from falling out and into the shaft.[13]
In 1924, after the Board of Patent Control dissolved, Latimer went on to work with Hammer and Schwartz until he retired.[14]
On February 11, 1918, Latimer joined the Edison Pioneers, becoming the first person of color to join this group of 100.[5]
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Latimer received a patent on September 13, 1881, along with Joseph V. Nichols, for a method of attaching carbon filaments to conducting wires within an electric lamp,[15] and another patent on January 17, 1882, for a "process of manufacturing carbons", a method for the production of carbon filaments for light bulbs which reduced breakages during the production process by wrapping the filaments in a cardboard envelope.[16][17]
The Edison Electric Light Company in New York City hired Latimer in 1884 as a draftsman and an expert witness in patent litigation on electric lights. While at Edison, Latimer wrote the first book on electric lighting, entitled Incandescent Electric Lighting (1890),[18] and supervised the installation of public electric lights throughout New York, Philadelphia, Montreal, and London.[19]
When that company was combined in 1892 with the Thomson-Houston Electric Company to form General Electric, he continued to work in the legal department.
In 1911, he became a patent consultant to law firms.[20]
Latimer taught English and drafting courses to immigrants at the Henry Street Settlement in New York.[21]
Latimer played the violin and flute, painted portraits, and wrote plays.[14]
He was an early advocate of civil rights. In 1895 Lewis wrote a statement in connection with the National Conference of Colored Men about equality, security, and opportunity.[14]
In later life, even though Latimer was no longer active military, he remained patriotic. He was an early and active member of the veteran organization, Grand Army of the Republic.[5] He acted as secretary and adjutant.[4]
For 25 years, from 1903 until he died in 1928, Latimer lived with his family in a home on Holly Avenue in what is known now as the East Flushing section of Queens, New York.[23] Latimer died on December 11, 1928, at the age of 80.[24] Approximately sixty years after his death, his home was moved from Holly Avenue to 137th Street in Flushing, Queens, which is about 1.4 miles northwest of its original location.[23]
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